


Four-Track

by htbthomas



Category: Strangers in Paradise
Genre: Multi, Yuletide 2008
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-25
Updated: 2008-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-04 19:12:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/htbthomas/pseuds/htbthomas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Casey watches David, David watches Katchoo, and Francine takes the first step toward a greater realization. A more in-depth look into a scene from Issue #78.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Four-Track

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wanderlustlover](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanderlustlover/gifts).



Disclaimer: The recognizable parts belong solely to Terry Moore.

__

Casey

I grabbed a second slice of pizza from the box, and glanced over at David, sitting on the control booth stool in the recording studio he had arranged for this intervention. His full attention was on Katchoo and Francine, locked in the recording booth. He had handcuffed the two of them together, to _force_ them to talk out their issues. He was so sure that all they needed was time to hash it out, to talk with no interruptions.

I smiled a tiny smile behind his back and then bit into my slice. David was so earnest, so sure that everyone in our "family" could get along. It was one of the things I adored about him. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with this loving, kind man - the kind of man who would risk everything for the woman he loved, even driving her into the arms of the woman _she_ loved.

Oh, I had long ago accepted that even if David was willing to share his bed, his heart and his life with me... I would never have him completely. David loved Katchoo. He loved her so much that he only wanted her happiness, even at the cost of his own. There weren't many people like that out there - and that was one of the reasons I had fallen for him so completely.

How had I gotten myself into this mess anyway? This was just supposed to be a job - a field assignment for Tambi Baker. I was tired of my life as a CPA, and wanted a little more excitement. So she assigned me to watch over Katchoo, her half-sister, to make sure she was okay and to report back to her. I never meant to get so attached to everyone, to get personally involved with Katchoo, or to fall in love with David in the process.

I knew everyone thought I was just a silly bimbo, a girl with too much pep and not enough brains. The girl who had a nose job, a boob job, and a shade of blonde not found in nature. A lot of it was just an act. But the longer I did it, the more I enjoyed it. This version of me loved life, loved people, and always looked at the bright side of things. Was that so bad?

I walked over to stand behind David, who hadn't taken his eyes off the women inside the booth for at least an hour. "So how long do we have this place?"

__

David

"Until tomorrow morning... if we need it," I told Casey.

Casey threw herself backward onto the couch behind me. "AAARGH! Why do they have to be so stubborn?!"

"They can't stay in there forever... there's no bathroom."

I had kept my eyes on Francine and Katchoo for the entire hour, trying to _will_ them to talk. Why couldn't they see that they were made for each other? What did it matter that Katchoo had a dark past, or that Francine was married?

Pasts didn't have to affect one's entire life. I knew this intimately. My former life as the leader of a street gang, the heir to the Takahashi syndicate - that was all in my past and was going to stay there, now that my sister Darcy was dead. And Christ had forgiven me of all my sins long ago.

And marriages could end. I had learned to read people during my time in the gangs. I was as good at it as Darcy, even though I had not used it to manipulate people like she had. I could easily see that Francine was deeply unhappy in her marriage to Brad. I didn't know what it was - maybe he was emotionally distant, maybe he didn't fit Francine's ideal and was more of a placeholder, maybe there were other issues - but I couldn't see Francine and Brad going the distance.

But Katchoo and Francine, that was totally different. They were fire and ice, dark and light, sugar and spice... but they just fit.

You couldn't tell it from the way they were actively ignoring each other in there, though. Francine scratched at her nose as if she were the only person in the room. Katchoo lit another cigarette, not caring that she was in a room full of sensitive equipment. Time to break them out of their complacency. I leaned down to shout into the intercom, "Hey! You guys need anything?"

They practically jumped out of their chairs, Katchoo's cigarette flying out of her mouth. "Yeah, a key!" she snarked over her shoulder.

"I've got your freakin' key!" Casey jibed from the couch. She had stuffed it into her bra earlier. Then she jumped up and slammed herself against the glass, pointing at the exaggerated cleavage between her breasts.

I blushed a little. That was my Casey, giving everything her 110 percent.

Katchoo's lips turned up in a sardonic grin, and she lifted her right hand slowly... to give Casey the finger.

Casey's mouth opened in shock, and then she pouted for a moment before flopping back on the couch with a huff.

I kept my eyes on Katchoo, though I was smiling at both of their antics. I would really miss all of them. It was going to be hell to tell them about my brain tumor. I had no idea how long I had left to live, but I wanted to live it to the fullest. That was why it was so important that Katchoo and Francine make up. I couldn't handle it if I died, and they were still estranged...

__

Katchoo

I watched Casey pout and move back from the window. "Goofball," I said with a smile.

"Did she get another boob job?" Francine asked in a disinterested voice, the first words she'd said since they locked the door on us.

"What?"

"They seem bigger."

"Aw, who knows. She's always trading `em in for the latest model... probably leases them," I joked.

"Don't you know how to pick the lock on these things?" Francine asked, holding up her end of the handcuffs.

"How would _I_ know?"

"You're the one with the criminal background." She didn't have to sound so dismissive.

"Well, I must have skipped crime school that day," I shot back. "You were the one with all the kinky boyfriends - you should know your way out of these."

"I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about," she sniffed.

"Oh, really?" I looked over at her. If she was going to bring up _my_ past, then I'd return the favor! "Well, let me see here... We had Tony Metiera with the spray-on hair, Doug Miller and the wardrobe his mother bought him, Chuck Jansen and his Polaroid camera, Freddie Femur the sex beggar... and mind you, these are just the ones when I was living with you, if you want to go all the way back to high school, we had..."

She interrupted my list with a shout. "All right! You've made your point!" She cut her eyes toward me with an annoyed frown. "You're no saint, you know."

"Never said I was."

"You don't even come close!"

"I know that."

"I mean, if saints were here... and you were... there..." She stood and held her hands apart as if she were measuring some vast distance, lifting our cuffed wrists in the process. "Then, well... There'd just be a really big difference, okay?!" She sat back down with a huff.

"Oh, that hurt," I said sarcastically. And then I started to snicker.

And she snickered back. Then we were both laughing hard, just like we used to do before everything got so damn complicated.

As I laughed, I watched the way her eyes crinkled, and her chest heaved up and down with each burst. She was so full of joy when she let go and let herself be happy. Why couldn't she just let herself be happy with me?

__

Francine

After we finally calmed down from our giggle fit, we sat against the studio wall and talked. We were still chained together of course, but it didn't feel so constricting anymore. This was the way I loved to remember us, free to say whatever was in our hearts, without any expectations on what our relationship was.

I laid it all on the line for her, about how we'd both been shutting ourselves away from the other, not sharing all of our pain and hurts they way we used to. Katchoo had been through all of this crazy trouble with Darcy Parker and all the fallout, and she had wanted to protect me from it! All I had ever wanted was to be there for her.

Katchoo listened. She agreed and even apologized. Apologized! I could hardly believe it.

"You know, it's all gone now, the Parker Girls and all that," she said, looking down at her hands. "All those people are dead and Tambi turned the rest over to the government. Thank God."

"I know, David told me everything."

"There's nothing now but my painting... and all my pictures look like you." She turned to me, the look on her face so longing that my heart broke.

I slowly reached down to undo my shirt a few buttons. I lifted aside the flap to show her the rose I had tattooed to my breast. "Does the woman in your painting have this?"

Katchoo freaked out, horrified that I would take Darcy Parker's symbol for my own.

"When did you do this?"

"Last summer, in the Bahamas."

"Why?! Francine, that's a mark of _ownership _\- Darcy Parker's mark!"

But she didn't understand. She had been tattooed that way against her will, but I wanted to be tattooed of my own _free_ will. "Darcy Parker is dead. Now it's a symbol of love."

"And... Brad?"

"My husband doesn't get a say in this. Husbands can leave you. This... is permanent." As I rebuttoned my shirt I went on, "I have nightmares of my own, Katchoo... Visions of life without you. They haunted me the whole time we were apart. I don't want to end up like that. I don't want to end up like Wendy."

"Wendy?" she asked, brow furrowing in confusion.

I entwined my fingers with hers as I explained, "In Peter Pan. Wendy left Peter to have a family and she could never go back, so she sent her daughter, and then she died."

"But you did leave me to start a family."

"And I found out it doesn't work without you. Nothing works without you. That's just it - that's what I've learned - I'm not the Wendy!" I leaned toward her, touching her cheek with my fingers. "I'm Francine. I get to have both."

Minutes later, hours later, we were knocking giddily on the window to wake up David and Casey. "Open up!"

"We're hungry!"

And traveling in the truck to Joe's Diner, the conspirators locked up in the cuffs they'd put on us, Katchoo and I felt more bonded than we had in years. I hoped Casey and David would enjoy the cuffs.

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